Metal-semiconductor contact resistivity is an important consideration in the fabrication of field effect transistors and becomes increasingly important as the dimensions of the contacts are scaled down and currently approach ten nanometers. MIS contacts are a relatively recent technological development, and may provide a contact resistivity that is lower than the resistivity of the equivalent direct metal-semiconductor contact between the same metal and semiconductor pair. As described in the Applicant's U.S. Pat. No. 7,084,423, incorporated herein by reference, a very thin, interfacial dielectric layer between the metal and semiconductor acts to reduce the Schottky barrier at the junction and at the same time has sufficient conductivity, despite being itself a dielectric with poor bulk electronic conduction, to provide a net improvement in the conductivity of the MIS junction.